This invention relates to a system for detecting the operative strokes of an internal combustion reciprocating engine.
In electronically controlled injection engines, the electronic control unit which controls the injectors must know the stroke of each cylinder to control injection of fuel and to control ignition in the predefined instants of each operating stroke. At engine crank-up, the electronic control unit does not know which are the operating strokes of the single cylinders. Usually, in order to start the engine in the shortest possible time, during the initial crank-up phase, a certain amount of fuel is injected into all of the cylinders at the same time. In this way, however, polluting emissions of unburned hydrocarbons are created which cause problems in terms of compliance with pollution prevention standards.
This invention aims at providing a system for detecting the operating strokes of an engine which, at the time when the engine is cranked, allows to identify the operating strokes of the various cylinders in the engine in the briefest possible time to allow the engine to run in the briefest possible time in a sequential and timed fashion, that is with fuel injection made at the right time and in a sequential fashion in the various cylinders.